Tuesday, December 04, 2012

The Strange Beauty of Google Maps Glitches

Abstract Season Changes is a Tumblr of stitching errors in Google Maps' satellite layer. The site is a series of screen-grabs, captured from Google Maps, where two different satellite images, captured in different seasons, have been incongruously stitched together.

The result is a collection of pictures with a strange kind of flawed beauty.

Every now and again the traditional media likes to jump on a mistake found on Google Maps, for example the recent discovery of the non-existent island Sandy. Google Maps FAIL has been documenting errors on Google Maps since 2009.

I take a lot of comfort from the fact that this Tumblr is so short (cue lots of comments pointing out other errors on Google Maps).

Dronestagram is another Tumblr blog that has recently generated a lot of interest. This Tumblr posts satellite images from Google Maps that show the locations of some U.S. drone attacks.

Dronestagram posts images from Google Maps Satellite view to Instagram, and syndicates this feed to Tumblr and Twitter, along with short summaries of each drone attack site.